Hand-made Soba Noodles

I love buying kitchen stuff, and since I’ve been living off a rather limited monthly graduate teaching assistant stipend for the past two years, I have to make “wise” decisions when it comes to shopping. So needless to say, all my kitchen “toys” are well worth the money I spent on them! And one of my favorite toys these months has definitely been--pasta machine! You can, of course, roll out the dough with a rolling pin, if you don’t mind the extra time and effort. That being said, pasta machine saves me a lot of time and effort: a petite girl like me does not really have much effort to spare, especially when it comes to activities that require some strength (I sincerely miss my bread machine whenever I am hand-kneading a dough here in my new apartment).

So there was one day I had a special craving for soba noodles. So I bought a bag of buckwheat flour from the store and I made some. Yes, right, that easy! My pasta machine is just awesome.

One thing I find about Soba noodles is that you need to eat them fresh, which means you need to eat the noodles right after they are made, unless you don’t want to taste the nutty flavor and the dense texture.

What I usually do is boil the noodles first and then cool them off in cold water, this way they get tender but still maintains a sense of crunchiness. I hate when noodles get sticky...well, who doesn’t? And then you prepare a bowl of dipping sauce simply by mixing together dashi soup base, mirin, and soy sauce and turn the heat off when the mixture is brought to a boil. Sometimes I put some bonito flakes on top to make it look good.

Yummy and perfect for a summer night, when you have just the right appetite for a light meal.